


Hardly the Worst Decision

by Impreciselanguage



Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age II
Genre: Gen, M/M, Pre-shipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-20
Updated: 2016-11-20
Packaged: 2018-08-31 23:55:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8598880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Impreciselanguage/pseuds/Impreciselanguage





	

            Kirin Hawke takes a drink and grimaces. _This_ was why he didn’t actually drink at _The Hanged Man._ He’d forgotten. Neither Isabela or Varric seemed to notice, but his brother was making a nearly identical expression of disgust. Anders had a pint, but so far Hawke hadn’t seen him take a drink or touch his food.

            “So, Hawke,” Varric begins. “Your brother and I have been talking.”  
            “ _This_ has got to be good,” Anders says.

            “It concerns you, too, Blondie.” Varric glances up at the still-standing Carver.

            “Yes, well . . .” Carver glances around, as if _anyone_ in the tavern actually gave a Maker’s Curse what was said around them. They barely looked up when all-out brawls were going on around them. All the same, Carver lowers his voice and leans in close. “You’re both apostates. Do you really think shouting about being a mage and calling a rain of fire in broad daylight are the wisest things to do?”  
            Hawke raises an eyebrow. “It is a bit much, I admit, but we can’t all be good with a blade. Besides, the Templars in Kirkwall are _deeply_ stupid.”

            “That’s not the point!”

            Anders, at least, has the grace to look mildly chagrined. “We shouldn’t have to hide what we are just because a few Mages abuse their powers.”

            Carver just glowers at them both and moodily finishes his Pint. Isabela chuckles to herself, glancing between Hawke and Anders. “ _I’m_ more interested in what you two do out of daylight.”

            “I think I’ll leave that to your quite fertile imagination,” Hawke says, with a smirk at Isabela. Varric chuckles, but Anders, who Hawke had expected to have a retort of his own, finally takes a draught of his ale.

            “I can’t believe you’re humoring her,” Carver says. “Do you know what she said to me when we got here?”  
            Knowing Isabela, even as superficially as Kirin did, he could guess. “A few thinly veiled nautical innuendos followed by an obvious proposition?”

            “That’s . . . basically the gist of it,” Carver mutters.

            Isabela smirks. “The offer’s still open. Unless your brother takes me up on it, first.” She drains the last of her flagon and stands. “ _Of course,_ there were these three brothers in Orlais. Triplets.” she winks as she swaggers over to the counter.

            Varric shakes his head. “I can never be sure whether she’s serious or not.”

            “Even with your gift for telling tall tales?” Anders asks, emerging from the silence that had taken him over since Isabela’s first joke.

            “Tall tales?! Blondie, I can’t tell if you’re trying to pay me a compliment or insult me.”

            “Why can’t it be a little of both?” Anders smiles slightly, and glances over at Hawke. Kirin finds himself smiling back at the other Mage for no particular reason. He had to admit, there were enough of these glances and half-smiles to fuel whatever it was Isabela imagining. But that was all. Anders had been receptive to him the few times he had let on he was attracted, but had never followed up on it. Hawke was still trying to figure out why. Perhaps it was simply too soon – after all, it had only been a few weeks before that Anders’ had been forced to mercy-kill his former lover. Things were, to put it simply, complicated.

            Isabela returns then, swinging a leg over the seat of her chair as she settles into it. “You’d think the men in this town had never opened their mouths before they try to spout poetry at me. Present company excluded. Barely.”

            “Well, we _are_ Fereldan.” Hawke nods at Varric. “Aside from Varric, that is.”

            “Fereldans never struck me as particularly eloquent either.” Isabela shrugs. “Must be the effect I have on men, then. And some women.” She takes a drink while Carver gives her a pained look. “Just look at him, he’s a Fereldan prince and he can barely string three words together.”

            “I think that’s more ale poisoning than anything else,” Anders says. “I’m afraid not every man’s so smitten by you he becomes a blubbering idiot.”

            Isabela smirks. “No, _some_ of them are too busy exchanging longing looks with each other.”

            “I can’t imagine who you’re referring to,” Hawke says dryly, as Aveline enters. He hadn’t actually been expecting her to join them, as her guard duties took up most of her time. Not that he wasn’t happy she came, but his friends were not the most compatible group. Of course, he’d been dealing with Carver’s bullheadedness since they were children, and Aveline had been his first friend in Kirkwall.

            “Sorry I’m so late,” she says, sitting next to Kirin. “What have I missed?”

            “Nothing of consequence,” Carver says.

            “Isabela was just speculating about our personal lives,” Kirin says. “Nothing new there.”

            “I would think you’d have enough of a _personal life_ not to drag everyone else down with you.”

            “Come now, surely the Captain of the Guard can’t be as much a prude as all that!” Isabela looks Aveline over. “Tell me, Guard Captain, don’t you ever lie awake at night, _entertaining_ yourself with thoughts of what’s going on in the barracks?”

            “ _Maker’s Breath!”_ Carver draws a stare from the elven serving wench but as usual, the majority of the customers of _The Hanged Man_ are willfully oblivious. Aveline turns red.

            “Just because your mind can’t rise out of the gutter doesn’t mean everyone’s is filled with filth,” she snaps.

            “I don’t know,” Anders says, “that _does_ sound pretty entertaining. Not the gutter, I mean, but the men, in the barracks . . .” he trails off and frowns. “Forget I said anything.”

            “Well, this has really been pleasant. All that’s missing is a Darkspawn attack and this will be the greatest evening ever.”

            “You’re right,” Aveline says, standing. “I shouldn’t have come. I’m not really . . . right, for this place.” She starts to go, and Hawke leaps to his feet and goes after her to meet Aveline by the door.

            “I never meant you should go.” He rubs his forehead. “Isabela is a bit hard to take, I know. Or rather easy, actually, but you know what I meant.”

            “You’ve been drinking.”

            “We _are_ in a tavern.” Kirin frowns. “Aveline.” All of the sarcasm and off-handed remarks failed him. “Do you have a few moments?”           

            She frowns back at him. “Of course. Is there something troubling you?”

            “Not me, exactly. It’s Anders.”

            “The apostate?”

            “ _Aveline._ ”

            “The Grey Warden deserter, then?”

            “Now you’re just trying to pay me back for every time _I_ teased you.”

            Just a hint of a smile on her face. “Is it working?”

            “It’s a little heavy-handed. You could probably use more practice.”

            Aveline sighs. “What is this about, Hawke?”

            He would rather _not_ be in the middle of the tavern. “Anders . . . you weren’t there, but his . . . _friend . . ._ Karl . . . had been made Tranquil. He asked Anders to kill him, which he did.” He doesn’t draw the line to the obvious similarities. Aveline is bright enough to draw them herself. Her eyebrows draw together.

            “It isn’t the same,” she says. “Besides, he doesn’t exactly have much sympathy for Templars.”

            “You can’t exactly blame him for that,” Kirin says, unsure whether he should tell her that Karl had been Anders’ lover. It seemed best to let Anders make that decision. “I know this is painful for you. I wouldn’t ask, if I didn’t think Anders needed it. I mean, I could always talk to him myself but I never say the right thing.”

            “You’re better at it than I am.” Aveline shakes her head. Behind them, Hawke hears laughter. “All right, Hawke, I’ll talk to him, if you’ll go with me.”

            He hadn’t been expecting that, which was probably due to all the ale. “Oh, well, if you think that’s best. I’ll meet you at his clinic tomorrow.”

            Aveline nods and takes her leave. Kirin Hawke returns to the table, wondering if he’s done the right thing. Oh well. It was hardly the worst decision he’d ever made.

*

            Darktown has a particular stink that was all its own, a dizzying blend of the sweat of the hundreds of the poorest Kirkwall citizens and Ferelden refugees, decaying refuse, dirt and muck. Hawke suspects there are bodies rotting in the darker corners, but hasn’t bothered to check. Aveline is pacing outside Anders’ secret clinic, and he wonders that she hasn’t been noticed.

            “Oh good, you’re wearing your uniform. Nothing conspicuous about that.”

            “I’m not sure the people here recognize the Guards’ uniform,” Aveline says after a moment of consideration. She jerks her head towards Anders’ door. “Does he know we’re coming?”

            “Do you really think I’d drop in on him unannounced?”

            “Do you really have to ask, Hawke?”

            Hawke knocks on the door. “With something _this_ important?” Aveline looks skeptical, as the door opens and they go inside. The young woman curtsies to them as she slips outside. Anders is standing in the corner, staring at the wall.

            “It’s a good wall,” Hawke says. “Very . . . _wall-ish.”_

Anders shakes his head as he turns towards them. From the look of the dark circles under his eyes, he hasn’t slept well. “I’ve been trying to find where the rats are getting in. I think they use a new entrance every night just to toy with me.”

            It was an obvious effort to disguise the true reasons for his sleeplessness, but Kirin’s willing to give it to him. “I’d get you a cat, but the rats here are probably twice the size of your basic barnyard tabby.”

            Aveline coughs, and Kirin remembers why he’s brought her there. He also remembers the time Anders had asked her about her ‘personal life’ with Ser Wesley. Which might have been the reason why she’d asked Hawke to come along. To keep the two of them from murdering each other. Which would be . . . inconvenient. “So, Anders . . . Hawke told me about your friend. I’m sorry.”

            “Thank you,” Anders replies. The two of them stand there like posts not actually looking at each other. Hawke isn’t actually sure why he expected anything different.

            “You two have more in common that I thought,” he says. Aveline frowns at him, but Anders just frowns.

            “I suppose Hawke told you they had made Karl Tranquil? What else did he tell you, I wonder?”

            “I am right here, you know.”

            “Only that you honored your friend’s request to end his life.”

            “Life isn’t what I’d call it.” Anders fiddles with a bit of feather that had fallen off his . . . mantle? Whatever it was. “If I had only gotten there sooner, those Templars wouldn’t have been able to do that to him.” He is beginning to glow with that blue light in his eyes and Hawke suspects that it’s not the most opportune moment for Aveline to share her story, considering what Ser Wesley was.

            “Anders! We can’t know what would have happened, you can’t blame yourself,” Hawke says, catching himself before he says that they could have just as easily made Anders Tranquil as well. That wasn’t likely to calm the angry Spirit peeking out of him. “Watch it, your Spirit of Justice is showing.”

            Surprisingly, that works and Anders stops glowing. He looks as though something else has gone out of hi, as well. “Sorry, I just . . . you should go. I appreciate this, whatever this is, but I think I’d rather be alone right now.”

            “Of course,” Aveline says. She turns towards the door, then turns back. “Hawke’s right, though, about one thing – you can’t blame yourself. It was a kindness.” Her voice chokes slightly, and Hawke wonders if Anders picks up on this. Aveline leaves, and Hawke lingers for a moment longer.

            “If there’s anything I can do for you?” he asks.

             “Aside from avoiding the Templars’ notice?” Anders shakes his head. “What was this about? Really?”

            “That’s really more Aveline’s business to tell,” Hawke says. “Her husband-”

            “The Templar.”

            “Yes. The less-zealous Fereldan type, also dead, Templar. He died by Aveline’s hand. As a former Gray Warden, you must know more about the Taint than I do. The only thing I know about Darkspawn is how to kill them. Also how bad they smell, how ugly they are . . .” Hawke sighs. “When it happened, I had just lost my sister, I didn’t know if we could save him or if he could even travel, and we would have all been dead if we were slowed down. All I remember is his fear and how he begged . . . I don’t think Aveline blames herself any longer.”

            Anders is silent for some time, and Kirin wonders if it’s time for him to take his leave. He is about to do so, when the other Mage finally speaks. “I had wondered. Little pieces of conversation, avoided subjects. And here I am, moping about Karl when we weren’t ever . . . well, we weren’t married.”

            “It’s still raw for you,” Hawke says. “Add in the very real threat all Mages face . . . I’m sorry, I’m not sure I’m helping and I do want to. Help you, I mean.” Anders gives him one of those tentative smiles, which he returns far less tentatively.

            “You’re doing more than enough,” Anders says. “It’s good for me to be reminded I’m not the only one who has lost someone.”

            Hawke frowns. “That wasn’t my intent, exactly.”

            “All the same,” Anders says. He gestures around the clinic. “I spend so much time here, helping these people, but I can’t exactly _share_ with them. Your bringing Aveline here, despite how it turned out, it’s just nice to know someone cares.”

            “Of course,” Hawke says. “I’ll just have to find a better way of showing it.”

            “Nothing wrong with painfully awkward,” Anders says. “Now, if you want to help me patch up the walls, you’re welcome to. I’m sure you have more important things to do.”

            “I can think of about a dozen things I’d _rather_ be doing,” Hawke says, and grins at Anders. “But they can all wait.”


End file.
